


Hope

by kikibug13



Category: Tron (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Changes come to the Grid, after Flynn disappears from it. Some of them don't necessarily seem to be good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DawningStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawningStar/gifts).



> Have very merry holidays!
> 
> And many thanks to my betas!

"Greetings, Program."

His voice made her look up, and she nodded to him, rising and reaching out a hand to catch his. "Tron!"

The program's eyebrows rose, concern replacing the easy excitement on his face. "Yori? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing has happened to me, Tron." Her reassurance was immediate, and certain. Especially after the cycles under the MCP, the worry wasn't unwarranted, but things were better, now. Far better.

"Then what is it, Yori?" Uncertainty. Curiosity. Care. The combination put a smile on her face, despite...

"Nothing has happened to me." Confusion. "There have been no summons. I have not... communicated with my User, since Flynn has been gone."

It took a nanocycle for Tron to understand what she was saying, but then he stepped closer, wrapping his arms around her, letting her draw from the knowledge of his presence. "There is no way Lora-Prime would have forgotten about you, Yori. I am certain of this."

She pressed her cheek against the slow hum of his chest, but didn't relax. 

"I know. I know she would not. It is Lora-Prime. It's just..."

"Tell me, Yori."

She hesitated. His reaction was clear enough signal - Alan-One had summoned him, after the system was free for these calls, again. Tron had been busy, so she had guessed that much already - far cry from rotting away in a cell, always waiting for summons for a _game_. Instead, he'd have true work to do - combating threats to the system (there had been more than before; she supposed the MCP _had_ kept some of the enemies away from them - or, rather, either recruited and repurposed them, or made them fight in the same game as the programs brought down to the holding cells. 

Either way, it was a - a _right_ thing, watching Tron fight for users _and_ programs again, as he had been meant to. There had been damages, she also knew - she had seen him, while he was waiting for recovery care after one of those. But his User - and Flynn, she supposed, they had to believe what he'd told them, after everything - always made sure he was in proper condition to fulfil his duties. It was truly impressive.

It made him happy, too.

It also brought the awareness of her own... inaction all the more into focus. 

But this was Tron. And if she was going to be discarded, for one reason or another, he had the right to know.

He wanted to know. 

"You know there has been - information. Knowledge. That there are changes in ENCOM. Since the MCP has been gone, and _some_ thing happened to replace the management."

They'd known about that soon enough; the programs clearly announced as inactive have been very well-identified. And, somehow, close supporters of the MCP, or those who had never tried to skirt around his authority. 

"I know."

"I... am afraid that she might have been let go, too." Not replaced in the Science and Engineering department only. Removed from the company. "What if she is gone, and I should just... stop waiting."

The both knew what that would mean. If Lora-Prime had been forced to leave her work too fast, she wouldn't have had time to clear her computer, her programs. Wouldn't have had time to shift Yori to disposal. But her idling cycles up here was a promise to nothing. 

Tron remained close to still for a while, only his fingers tracing the pattern of one of her circuits at her shoulder. Almost, though not quite, enough to flare it purple. She couldn't make up her mind if it was calming or irritating. She gave up on trying to separate them.

"Yori... I don't think that's the situation." Tron's voice was quiet, thoughtful, but not pitying. "I may be mistaken, but I think - there was something in the way Flynn treated you. I think that Lora-Prime matters to him, and I don't think you will find yourself User-less, like that."

"You think his opinion would matter?"

"He won. I'm working, rather than disposed of. I know his opinion matters."

She considered that. And, again, wasn't sure if it helped or not. Was the threat of being disposed of better than the thought that her User had abandoned her? 

No. Disposal would be the worst. It was the most final. But not knowing was next. Abandoned, forgotten... that would be hard. But she knew it wasn't the end of things. She would survive, somehow, and find her place. She'd seen programs do that, if rarely - and, if anyone could do that, it was her. Especially with Tron by her side.

Slowly, finally, she managed to smile back, looking up at him.

"Thank you, Tron."

His smile mirrored hers, and she did feel better. 

In the microcycles that followed, she lost some of that confidence, and found it again. She tried helping programs in different fields, but, once she was looking at the signs, she wasn't the only program from the Science department that wasn't getting calls. The facts were adding up to either all of them getting replaced, or the Science department altogether not working, and she couldn't calculate either of those options.

 

She and Tron were resting on a downcycle when it happened. Yori had almost given up, looking for ways to re-purpose herself into something useful in the new system--

\-- and then it came. Summons from her User. 

She startled upright so fast that Tron reached for his disc, rolling up and alert, but then he saw her face and shook his head.

"Is it--?"

"Lora-Prime. Yes."

His front was glowing, and she didn't even have to think how it was reflected light from her circuits. 

"Good. Go."

"I'll return."

"I know."

 

The communication beam was comfortable and familiar around her, though there were new elements, new data aspects. It was definitely from a new location, and the resources Yori found at her disposal were suddenly many times improved. 

_ > Start of system check of program: Yori. Acknowledge._

Yori almost had to look at her hands as the familiar checks ran through her, careful and probing and beautiful, as anything Lora-Prime did. "Acknowledged!"

_ > Good. New functionality block set to download. Now._

It wasn't a repurposing. It wasn't discarding. Instead, it was expansion, improvement of her work. And it included information of a number of new programs that she would be in charge of. That she would have to train and help improve.

 

Tron said her circuits glowed every single time when she accessed the memory from that communication...

From that reunion.

Yori had no reason to doubt his word at all.


End file.
